Attacks on the Press in 2010 - Committee to Protect Journalists

Asia: AnalysisanalysisPartisan JournalismAnd the Cycle of Repressionby Bob Dietz and Shawn W. CrispinLal Wickramatunga’s family and publishing house, Leader Publications,have paid dearly in Sri Lanka’s highly charged political climate. WhileLeader’s newspapers, including the weekly Sunday Leader, are widelyknown for tough, independent reporting, they have been caught up ina partisan media environment, one filled with violence and censorship.Wickramatunga’s brother has been murdered, his company has been sued,and his journalists face intimidation.“The media in Sri Lanka are largely partisan,” says Wickramatunga, whotraces the evolution of the country’s press, in part, to a history of governmentmanipulation and repression. Now, President Mahinda Rajapaksa’sgovernment is exploiting the situation, citing partisan news coverage asjustification for imposing sweeping restrictions. “The media have simplybuckled down in the last year,” says Wickramatunga, “and are toeing thegovernment line or simply censoring themselves.”What happens when politics gets hot and heavy, and the news mediaopenly pick sides? Those conditions have been exposed in the raw in SriLanka and Thailand, where politicians have fomented polarization in themedia, used state or partisan outlets to advance their own agendas, andthen exploited the environment to justify restrictions on all media, includingcritical independent outlets.Both nations share characteristics that have helped create partisanmedia. They each have strong state media operations that aggressivelypromote the current administration’s views, and they each have a longhistory of repressing critical independent media. In Thailand, the presenceof powerful, moneyed political figures willing to bankroll their own mediaoperations has further fueled this partisan climate. In Sri Lanka, the manipulationof public advertising to reward allies and punish critics has hadthe effect of marginalizing independent media. In this environment, some123